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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26959345">—O damned 1959!</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/portraitofire/pseuds/portraitofire'>portraitofire</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Dead Poets Society (1989)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>M/M, enjoy! xo, fanfiction but make it poetry, i don't know how to write 1950s-esque poetry but this was an attempt</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 03:01:49</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,312</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26959345</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/portraitofire/pseuds/portraitofire</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of poetry &amp; prose by Todd Anderson throughout his years at Welton Academy.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Todd Anderson &amp; Neil Perry, Todd Anderson/Neil Perry</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>32</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. copyright page</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Copyright ©️ 1975 Todd Anderson</p><p>Published by Arthur L. Levine Poetry</p><p>All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form, by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. dedication page</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>
  <i>Dedicated to the Dead Poets Society.</i><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<abbr>Utinam Ne Illum Numquam Conspexissem</abbr>

</p>
</div>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. preface</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Dear Reader,</p><p>Long ago I did not believe these words would see the light of day, not to mention a public eye. They were written in deeply private moments and corners, within the darkest shadows of my existence, and within the most glorious. Each holds a jagged piece of me that I have not revisited for many, many years but I feel so called to now let these words be free. </p><p>Therefore, I present to you a rudimentary collection of poetry and prose from my days at Welton Academy. It is my deepest wish that you may find within your soul some connection to the boyish yearning in the pages to come. Not one poem lives to the standards I should hope to meet now, and for that, I excuse myself.</p><p>In the words of Victor Hugo, to die of love is to live by it, and if I should die soon, I hope it be by love.</p><p>My fondest wishes,<br/>
Todd Anderson</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. I</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
   Sandpaper tongue in a hollow throat, <br/>
   Gasping for words but they choke on the way out. <br/>
   They putter and die in death's final throes, <br/>
   Then emerge, silent and undignified.
</p><p>
   Where is my voice, O captain? <br/>
   How may I contribute a verse? <br/>
   When I am mute as god above? <br/>
   
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. II</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><span class="u">asleep</span><br/>
moonlight caresses your softly relaxed features<br/>
illuminating the wrinkles in your white t-shirt<br/>
brushing its pale fingertips over the sharp angle of your nose<br/>
giving your skin the colour of white primrose<br/>
i close my eyes and fall asleep to the long past sound of your fingertips<br/>
softly hitting the typewriter, still echoing in my brain<br/>
i vision the scene, no doubt with a frown on your parted lips<br/>
the world quiets and centers, rotating within our little room<br/>
and i smile knowing out there in the night a flower is preparing to bloom</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. III</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>To contribute a verse.
I have pondered, long dreary nights about the meaning of that. What verse and how? How badly I wish I, too, had something to contribute. But the meaningless cesspool of thoughts and cries would merit nothing from my tasteless philosophies. Who am I to declare myself a philosopher? I am a scrawny, idiotic child in my older brother’s clothing, fawning pitilessly over a world just out of my fingertips' grasp, namely you.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Who am I?</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. IV</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>O damned 1959!<br/>How dreadful are the grips of snow,<br/>Slipping, stumbling,<br/>To my icy hell of woe.<br/>Thy greedy hands<br/>Have robb'd and plundered,<br/>The sun; my joy<br/>My mortal Apollo</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. V</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sipping strawberry tomato juice<br/>As you read aloud Henry David Thoreaugh,<br/>We sit cross-legged in the foggy early morn<br/>A collection of minstrel vagabonds<br/>Who call one another poets</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. VI</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It’s my birthday today. I spent the eve of, dreaming, in fits of sweaty sheets and tangled sobs picturing your rosy, classical laugh. “Is today your birthday? Happy birthday!” The glee that jumped and jarred in your throat, cascaded like a pool of warm sunshine into my soul. When I couldn’t bear to lie there any longer, I sat at my desk and stared at the moon above. It was a crescent, somewhere in between waning gibbous and third quarter from my simple deduction. It hung so limply, there, as if pondering why it existed at all. If the moon had dreams, what would it dream of? Not you, I’m sure. Maybe it dreams of earth and her grassy knolls and the picket fences that divide us like lines in the sand. Or maybe not. Maybe it would dream of you. It has seen your face all too much more than I. Late nights on our shared windowsill, going over your lines with only his light to guide you. The tenor of your voice, bubbling chuckles, spilling over those scripted pages until I glided to sleep, leaving only you and him.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. VII</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Autumn in Vermont is a cold, bitter affair,<br/>The kind that ends too sharply to ever think back pleasantly on what was.<br/>When you discover their toothbrush on the bathroom sink,<br/>You throw it out instead of returning it.<br/>It’s the kind of autumn that squeezes your insides with its frosty fingertips,<br/>And leaves your stomach curdled with cold.<br/>It won’t last forever, we sourly predict,<br/>In order to salvage some sort of hope in the twirling dark,<br/>But autumn in Vermont lasts an infinity.<br/>Spring comes with her cheerful laugh, a soon-to-be bride,<br/>But it doesn’t melt the walls of ice that have formed inside.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. VIII</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Bespectacled<br/>A certain aspect of grandeur <br/>Enlarges the wisdom in a face<br/>But yours,<br/>It crystallizes what is already intact<br/>The wisdom, truth, in your<br/>Star-gleaming grin.<br/>That two such circles can alter<br/>The portal of your soul<br/>I am in love</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0012"><h2>12. IX</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Dear Mr Nolan,</p><p>I’m sorry I didn’t say hello at the funeral.<br/>I think part of me was still wanting to hate you,<br/>So bad<br/>Sometimes I wish that I do<br/>Just so I have someone to place my blame<br/>But you’re a product of your own father<br/>In a hierarchy of never-ending resiliency<br/>With tough skin and sharp intellect<br/>You mold yourself into your father until<br/>There’s no recognizing who is who</p><p>I believe you loved Neil<br/>In a different way than I, but really<br/>How different are we?<br/>We both let him go<br/>I watched him duck into your rain-peppered car<br/>I didn’t even say goodbye<br/>And they say you were asleep when<br/>The shot rang out<br/>The two are the same, if you ask me<br/>I was asleep too</p><p>If you’d like, we could go for lunch some time<br/>There's a place I think he would have liked<br/>I know this won’t ever get to you but maybe<br/>Just writing these words down is enough<br/>They’ll cross space and time and penetrate your consciousness <br/>Like a bird in flight<br/>(or a flying desk set)</p><p>Sincerely, <br/>Todd Anderson</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0013"><h2>13. X</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>he was the depiction of god in an oil painting<br/>he was a marble hewn statue, all edges and smooth lines<br/>he was a book with dog eared pages and notes in the margins<br/>he was a sweater you never outgrow<br/>he was the rain against a glass paned window on a saturday morning<br/>he was a white rose<br/>he was a relic, a fairy, a god<br/>he was a fucking van gogh <br/>why did i let him go</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0014"><h2>14. XI</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“If  we shadows have offended,<br/>Think but this, and all is mended:<br/>That you have but slumbered here<br/>While these visions did appear.”</p><p>I gaze in silent, dreaming reverie<br/>His transformation is sublime, and I<br/>Committing every inhale to memory .<br/>The witnessing thereof is enough<br/>to last for days on a priceless high<br/>Only you can don a soul like mine<br/>And shed it like a lullaby</p><p>Theatrics do funny things to a person,<br/>Enlivening parts of you I’ve never seen<br/>“this is the first time I've ever felt alive”, you told me<br/>I wished I had the courage to say, “me too”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0015"><h2>15. XII</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Now, you can be sure of one thing<br/>
To Tradition, honour, discipline and excellence,<br/>
I say go to hell<br/>
To poetry, love, adoration and words,<br/>
I say carry on<br/>
Our world is far too small for discipline<br/>
Too crudely made for excellence<br/>
It could not bother with tradition<br/>
And chews honour like tobacco<br/>
If, i could only use one phrase<br/>
To perfectly encapsulate the morrows of our day<br/>
I would scream and shout,<br/>
“Amor Omnia Vincit”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>well, this was fun! this week i decided to try and write a lil something every day to challenge myself and somehow, this fell out of my brain. if you've gotten this far, i just wanted to say that poetry is not my strength at ALL, it's one of those things that i try and try and try at but i never get any better. so, clearly, this would not be anything like what todd's poetry would realistically look like. but i've always felt very connected w him emotionally, so maybe, if he was super crumby at writing, it would come out like this?</p><p>anyway, cool, thanks for reading, please don't mind the inconsistencies w capitalization (i assure u it was all thought out but i'm already overexplaining myself as it is so i'll leave you to deduct whatever you'd like).</p><p>have a nice day!! xo</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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